To highlight this, Krebs provided a post from a Russian blog that indicates the criminals are moving to other ISPs. 3FN is also allegedly telling their "customers" they will be up and running soon at a new (undisclosed) location.
We might have already seen the precedent of criminals simply moving to "greener pastures" after an ISP take down. Last year, two other ISPs (McColo and Atrivo/Intercage) were taken down. In the aftermath of McColo, spam volumes fell 50 percent. Sadly enough, the spammers and other criminals simply moved to other ISPs (outside the U.S.) and the spam levels have returned to pre-McColo levels.
According to Symantec's most recent monthly report, spam levels are up to 94 percent of pre-McColo levels and it is estimated that 90 percent of all e-mail is spam. This extremely high percentage of spam causes legitimate e-mail to get caught in spam filters, according to Symantec. I have seen this occurring on my personal accounts, more and more, frequently.
While shutting down rogue ISPs is a good thing and is a trend I hope will continue, catching a few of the human rogues behind this activity might lead to a more permanent fix. We need to remember that these people are responsible for abusing people (notably children), larceny on a grand scale and making everyone's Internet experience less pleasant.
One of the reasons cyber crime has grown into such a big problem is that consequences seem to be lacking for those directly involved in it. Of course, some might point the finger at those who enable it, too. Computers and the Internet do not commit crime, people do! Likewise, most of the enablers are people, too.
Until we address the root of the problem and the people behind it, It will be hard to make much progress by simply shutting down an ISP or two. Of course, this doesn't mean that shutting them down isn't a large step in the right direction.
Extradition and aggressive prosecution would greatly complement this latest take down.
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